Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Getting Mad at Double-Parked Vehicles—It’s Not Just for Cyclists Anymore
If you use Twin Cities roads in any capacity, you’ll have noticed an increased number of vehicles—delivery trucks, Ubers, or just regular old dumbasses—flicking on their hazards while stopped illegally on the roadway. My own anecdotal reporting: There is always a car (seemingly a rideshare) stopped on southbound Nicollet between 35th and 36th.
These drivers have long been the bane of cyclists, as almost anyone who rides a bike around town has had to dart into traffic because of a delivery vehicle hogging up a bike lane. But now it’s getting so bad that even drivers are getting pissed. (Not that it takes much for drivers—and I’m including myself here—to get pissed.)
The Strib’s Tim Harlow heard from plenty of these drivers, many asking if this was legal. “Flashers are not meant to be used to pick up or drop off someone, especially while the vehicle is in a lane of traffic,” the Minnesota State Patrol told the Strib. Well there you have it: Turning on your hazards doesn’t magically make halting your vehicle wherever you damn well please somehow legal.
A city spokesman told Harlow that “traffic control responds to complaints phoned into 311 in real time and through proactive enforcement,” but let’s be real—that UPS truck will be gone by the time anyone shows up to ticket them. The real issue, as I see it, is that enormous corporations, whether in the delivery or rideshare business, allow their employees to habitually break traffic laws as though they’re entitled to special privileges. Somebody oughta do something!
Update: MN Is NOT ‘Climate-Proof’ After All
Remember all the breathless stories about how Californians were fleeing to Duluth to save themselves from our planet’s fiery death? Many were in the New York Times, which is changing its tune given the rash of wildfires consuming northern Minnesota this year. According to a recent headline, the state is not a “climate refuge” after all.
Though wildfires are a seasonal occurrence in northern Minnesota, their severity appears to be increasing. “In Minnesota, a typical year brings an average of 1,200 wildfires that burn through 12,600 acres, according to state data,” the Times reports. “Since the beginning of this year, more than 1,000 wildfires have already destroyed more than 50,000 acres.”
There are three fires currently raging up north, and they’ve consumed more than 32,000 acres; WCCO has interactive maps showing the extent of the damage. Today the state issued a Red Flag warning to area residents, and at least one Racket staffer canceled plans to head up north last weekend.
Cancer Expert Dean Phillips Weighs in on Biden’s Prostate
National Democrats were indulging in their favorite pastime of endlessly relitigating a previous presidential campaign, and the political press was happily amplifying matters, when Joe Biden’s announcement that he has metastatic prostate cancer threatened to ruin the fun. Fortunately, the New York Times turned to the one man whose opinion on the matter we were all waiting to hear: former Rep. Dean Phillips (DFL-MN).
To Phillips, this health news seems suspiciously timed. “I don’t think it’s coincidental that this was announced this week,” Mr. Phillips told the Times. “It’s hard to comport otherwise.” (Comport?) Phillips, who really just sucks, went on to say, “Donald Trump [ed note: who is currently president] isn’t shy about his corruption. What’s so troubling is that what the people around Joe Biden [ed note: who is no longer president] clearly were doing was in some ways more egregious.”
While I’m a big fan of shit-talking, personally, if one of my adversaries (well, most of them—I can think of exceptions) had advanced cancer and the New York Times asked me for a quote, I’d just extend my sympathies to the dude and his family. Guess that’s why I’m not a former member of Congress.
As Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer points out, the sad irony here is that Biden’s marquee health initiative was funding cancer research, while his successor is starving medical research of federal funds, halting clinical trials that are already underway, and essentially guaranteeing that further cancer treatments will not be discovered in the U.S. That’s a matter someone more concerned with the current state of the country than with receiving a pat on the head for I-told-ya-so-ing might have pointed out to the Times.
Twin Cities-Duluth Train Derailed
Bad news, train fans: The proposed Northern Lights Express line, which was to stretch 152 miles up to the Zenith city, looks like the latest victim of the state's belt-tightening. Rep. Jon Koznick (R-Lakeville), co-chair of the House Transportation Finance and Policy Committee, says the project “is effectively dead and taxpayers are better off because of it.” The legislature appropriated $194.7 million for the line, and was to receive four times that in matching federal funds. Now $77 of that will likely go to help pay for unemployment insurance for hourly school-year workers. A confirmed train-hater, Koznick is clear on how the money should be spent instead: “Building roads.”
